///Colours// thinks the Bat. //Colours kill these days/Worse than kill/Make you wished you’d been killed//

The Bat shifts its weight, hunkering down onto the tiled roof. The brass wings arcing from its back click and settle into a new position. They scrape the chimney behind it and leave pale gouges in the crumbling mortar.

///Colours// thinks the Bat. //Colours give life these days/Food and coin/Depends who asks/Depends who wants/Bat knows who wants/Bat asks/Bat gets//

A croaking chuckle comes from the darkness beneath the Bat’s cowl, then turns quickly into a rasping cough. The brass wings shudder, scratching more lines into the chimney stack. Pale mortar falls like snow. Like ash.

Above the chimney stack, above the Bat, something in the energy field seems to turn inside out and slowly bleeds into a translucent purple. Brass wings crackle in response, flaring incandescent sparks from their tips, and the Bat looks up.

The Bat rises into a hunched, half-bent stance and its wings flare above it. Crackling arcs of energy, searing webs of purple, violet and white, jump from wing-tip to wing-tip and skitter along the brazen vanes.

With a flex of its shoulders that sends a shimmering ripple through the wings of pure power now held above its twisted form, the Bat stalks off through the chimney stacks to hunt for his secrets.